Groupon Fesses Up: It Will Eliminate Account Requirement to Use Site

A Deutsche Bank analyst exposed a new initiative at Groupon that will allow users to visit the daily-deals site without first creating an account.

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Chief Executive Eric Lefkofsky said Groupon had been testing a so-called “ungated”version of its website. The confession was prompted by a question during the company’s earnings call Thursday from Deutsche Bank analyst Ross Sandler.

Opening the site to users without accounts would widen Groupon’s audience and take it even further from its original business model of daily emails with discount offers. The company has been trying to become less reliant on such daily deals in favor of longer-term offers, as well as the sale of physical goods.

“You’re kind of feeling a potential press release that we might send out in a couple weeks,” Lefkofsky said, in response to Sandler. “So you are obviously in a test bucket which is why you’re seeing an ungated site, but that’s okay.”

Lefkofsky said Groupon hadn’t completed testing of the new “ungated” site and won’t formally announce it until it was available to more users.

A spokesman said in an email that users would still have to sign up to purchase deals.